Creating Manual Activities for Change Management
by Dieter Casser, Steve Buchanan, Steve Beaumont, Andreas Baumgarten, Anders Asp
Microsoft System Center 2016 Service Manager Cookbook - Second Edition
- Microsoft System Center 2016 Service Manager Cookbook - Second Edition
- Microsoft System Center 2016 Service Manager Cookbook - Second Edition
- Credits
- Foreword
- About the Authors
- About the Reviewers
- www.PacktPub.com
- Customer Feedback
- Preface
- 1. ITSM and ITIL Frameworks and Processes
- Introduction
- Understanding ITSM frameworks
- ITIL© processes
- Creating an Asset Management process
- Creating a Configuration Management System (CMS) process
- Creating a Service Request Fulfilment process
- Creating an Incident and Problem Management process
- Creating a Change and Release Management process
- Creating an IT Service Desk
- The Service Level Management process
- Dependencies and relationships between ITSM processes
- 2. Personalizing SCSM 2016 Administration
- Introduction
- Configuring how long to keep your SCSM data
- Configuring the Incident Management global settings
- Configuring the Problem Management global settings
- Configuring the Service Requests, Activity, Release, Knowledge, and Change Management global settings
- Configuring the behavior of child incidents when resolving, reactivating, and closing the parent incident
- Configuring the priority and urgency for your SLA targets
- Creating Management Packs to save your SCSM personalization
- Creating a configuration item group
- Creating a basic queue
- Creating SCSM console tasks
- Configuring global e-mail notification infrastructure settings
- Creating formatted e-mail notification templates
- 3. Configuring Service Level Agreements (SLAs)
- Introduction
- Creating priority queues
- Configuring business hours and non-working days
- Creating SLA metrics
- Creating SLOs
- Creating Incident Management SLAs
- Creating Service Request SLAs
- Viewing SLA warnings and breaches
- Setting up SLA notifications for warnings and breaches
- Creating repeated notifications before SLA breaches with escalation
- 4. Building the Configuration Management Database (CMDB)
- Introduction
- Adding configuration items manually
- Importing Active Directory configuration items
- Importing Configuration Manager configuration items
- Importing Operations Manager configuration items
- Importing Virtual Machine Manager configuration items
- Importing Orchestrator runbooks
- Using a CSV file to import items into the CMDB
- Creating a Business Service
- Personalizing and organizing configuration item views
- 5. Deploying Service Request Fulfilment
- Introduction
- Creating Support Groups for Service Requests
- Creating Service Request templates
- Creating Service Request activities
- Creating Service Offering categories
- Creating Service Catalog Request Offerings
- Creating Service Catalog Service Offerings
- Publishing Service Offerings and Request Offerings
- Working with Service Requests in the Self-Service Portal
- Filling in the Service Request Description with User Input from the Request Offering
- Creating Service Request notifications
- 6. Deploying and Configuring the HTML5 Self-Service Portal
- Introduction
- Choosing the right deployment model
- Deploying the HTML5 Self-Service Portal
- Configuring permissions
- Configuring cache settings
- Customizing the Self-Service Portal
- Customizing the Self-Service Portal further
- Getting ready
- How to do it...
- Lower-left side of fly out menu
- Icons
- Side bar links
- Colors look and feel
- Custom error message
- 7. Working with Incident and Problem Management
- Introduction
- Configuring incident and problem lists
- Creating an incident template
- Creating a subscription to notify the affected user upon the creation of an incident
- Adding a task to the incident form
- Creating a view to display the problem records created in the last 30 days
- Configuring the Global Operators Group
- Downloading, installing, and configuring the Exchange Connector
- Making the description field in the incident form auto-grow
- Extending the Incident class with a new property
- Using Advanced Search to find very specific incidents
- 8. Designing and Configuring Change Management and Release Management
- Introduction
- Creating and configuring Change Request Templates
- Creating and managing Change Management Review Activities
- Creating Manual Activities for Change Management
- Creating and managing Dependent Activities in Change Management
- Creating and personalizing Change Management Parallel Activities
- Creating and personalizing Change Management Sequential Activities
- Creating and personalizing Change Management Activity notifications
- Creating and managing Build and Environment Release Records
- Creating and managing Release Record Templates
- Working with Change Requests and Release Records
- Filling in all related Activity Descriptions with Descriptions from parent Change Requests
- 9. Implementing Security Roles
- Introduction
- Viewing basic settings for Security roles
- Adding users to the End Users role
- Creating and managing Service Request roles
- Creating and managing Incident Management roles
- Creating and managing Problem Management roles
- Creating and managing Change and Release Management roles
- Creating hybrid roles
- Configuring the Self-Service Catalog security role
- Listing SCSM security role details with PowerShell
- Getting SCSM security roles of a specific user with PowerShell
- 10. Working with the Data Warehouse and Reporting
- Introduction
- Viewing SCSM reports
- Creating favorite and linked reports
- Understanding the Service Manager Data Warehouse data mart
- Creating reports with Report Builder
- Configuring report permissions
- Delivering reports automatically using report subscriptions
- Analyzing data with Microsoft Excel
- Using the Analysis Library to publish Excel reports
- 11. Extending SCSM with Advanced Personalization
- 12. Automating Service Manager 2016
- Introduction
- Routing incidents automatically using workflows
- Downloading and installing SMLets
- Using SMLets to delete a work item
- Exporting your unsealed management packs using SMLets
- Creating a custom workflow in the Authoring Tool - exporting your unsealed management packs
- Autoclosing resolved incidents with SMLets and a custom workflow
- Automating your request offerings with Orchestrator
- Creating new work items with SMLets
- 13. Whats New in SCSM 2016 and Upgrading from SCSM 2012 R2
- Introduction
- What's new in Service Manager 2016?
- Preparing for Service Manager 2016
- Upgrading to Service Manager 2016
- A. Community Extensions and Third-Party Commercial SCSM Solutions
- Introduction
- Cireson solutions for Microsoft Service Manager
- itnetX
- Provance
- Derdack
- Gridpro
- SCUtils
- Axians
- B. Useful Websites and Community Resources
Manual Activities in SCSM 2016 can be used to reflect the different manual steps during the Change Management process.
This recipe will show how to configure the different properties of Manual Activities in SCSM 2016.
If you closed the Change Request Form in the last recipe after creating a Review Activity, open the Change Request Template we created in the recipe before by navigating to SCSM 2016 console | Library | Templates | Change Request Service Pack Installation Template. Click on the Activities tab in the Change Request form.
If the form of the Change Request Template is still open just continue with the How to do it... section.
To add a Manual Activity in a Change Request or Change Request Template, follow these steps:
- Click on + Activities and select Default Manual Activity from the list. Click on OK.
- Fill the Title and Description fields.
- Pick a Priority and Area. We will choose Medium from the Priority drop-down box and Software from the Area drop-down box, because the Change Request Template is related to the Installation of a Service Pack.
- Click on OK to close the Manual Activity Template form.
- Click on OK to close the Manual Activity form.
- Click on OK to close the Change Request Template.
A SCSM 2016 workflow will set the first activity to the status of In Progress, all other activities will be set to the status of Pending. The Change Request will also get the status of In Progress.
The Manual Activity allows you to capture the manual steps required in your defined Change Management process.
Typically, an Implementer is assigned to the Manual Activity. The Implementer is the person responsible for carrying out the manual action specified in the manual activity. Using the information in the Activity you are able to send a notification to the relevant individuals when the activity status is set to In Progress.
Also, you can configure the Scheduled Start and Scheduled End Date. This can be key to reporting as it provides visibility on how many activities are performed and completed in the scheduled time.
Note that the Activity Implementer helps to optimize the process. Also reporting offers a good opportunity to improve the Change Management process.
To see how to notify an implementer if a Manual Activity is updated to status In Progress please look at the Creating and personalizing Change Management Activity notifications recipe in this chapter.
Providing the Scheduled Start and End Time of Manual Activity is very helpful for reporting.
To get more information about reporting in SCSM 2016, please take a look at the recipes in Chapter 10, Working with the Data Warehouse and Reporting of this cookbook.
Microsoft TechNet Library: Managing Changes and Activities in System Center - Service Manager: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/system-center-docs/sm/manage/ops-managing-changes-and-activities-in-system-center-2016-service-manager.
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